With 15 Top 10 hits on the Billboard Hot 100, and four #1 singles, Taylor Swift has been a massive force in the music industry since her breakout debut back in 2006. Swift has shined light into an industry that was once seen to be on a major decline. Seen as a powerhouse and a true threat, Swift not only has a truly unique voice and strong vocal range, but also writes all of her music -- a rarity in the industry. With a combined passion for songwriting and influencing the lives of her fans, Taylor Swift has become one of music's biggest stars of the last decade.
Starting off as a country superstar at the age of 16, Swift inspired a new age of fans and gained their respect through her impressive storytelling-like music. One thing that separates Swift from her competition is that she speaks from the heart; where her contemporaries have generic singles written for them, Swift takes her music into her own hands. Her reign never lets up, and with successful hits such as "Love Story," "You Belong With Me," and "All Too Well," Taylor's country roots were solidified.
Back in August 2014, Swift announced to a Yahoo Music! audience and Livestream, being broadcasted online, that she would be releasing the followup to 2012's Red, entitled 1989, in October 2014. This would be “[Swift's] very first, documented, official pop album." The announcement coincided with the release of the album's first single and its music video, "Shake It Off," which went on to debut at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming Swift's second #1 single. The song has gone on to become one of Swift's biggest releases, and has sold over four million copies to date. With the announcement of 1989, some fans and industry experts expressed concern with Swift's blatant move away from her country roots. Even with the fear of alienating country fans, Taylor stunned everyone with the massive success of "Shake It Off" succeeded by the #1 singles "Blank Space" and "Style" -- which were inspired by her relationship with previous boyfriend Harry Styles -- and the just-released "Bad Blood," which also skyrocketed to #1.
“Blank Space," likely the best of Swift's career and easily a candidate for the best pop song of 2014, captures the essence of 1989 in all its glimmering, solipsistic glory: Taylor winks at her former deer-in-the-headlights image (“Oh my God, / Look at that face, / You look like / My next mistake") while telescoping her vision past the excitement of a fresh romance toward its inevitable, painful dissolution to see the entire thing unfold before she's even said hello. In the world of Taylor Swift, that counts as some serious disillusionment." -PopMatters
Where artists like Madonna and Lady Gaga forcefully shove reinvention down their fans throats, Taylor Swift distanced herself from her country past and aimed at a new sound. 1989 debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200, selling 1.29 million copies in its opening week of sales. To put this number in perspective, pop stars such as Madonna, Katy Perry, Britney Spears, and Ariana Grande's combined album sales from their last releases together are still less than 1989's opening week sales.
The massive success of 1989 proved that the music industry is not dead. While most artists have given up hope of having strong album sales, and focus on a strong single release, Swift is to the contrary. Streaming services, such as Spotify and TIDAL, have drawn lots of customers away from purchasing albums due to a set monthly fee giving users access to millions of tracks, and following 1989's release, Swift removed her music catalog from Spotify due to her beliefs about the respect of music, time, and artistry.
"I felt like I was saying to my fans, 'If you create music someday, if you create a painting someday, someone can just walk into a museum, take it off the wall, rip off a corner off it, and it's theirs now and they don't have to pay for it.' "
With an impressive marketing technique of utilizing Polaroid photos for the album's cover and promotion, and massive worldwide hits, Swift's 1989 has done the (what seemed to be) impossible: shining a ray of light through the dark clouds hovering over the music industry.
